Like Lent, Advent is a season of
preparation, self-examination, repentance and restoration. The
culture around us celebrates the "joy" of Easter and Christmas,
but it's really more a general sense of warm and fuzzy feelings
connected to holiday memories with family and friends. Real joy,
however, only comes after we've been willing to allow God to
deal with the brokenness in our lives, which is what the
preparatory seasons of Lent and Advent are designed to do. We
can't really express the joy of being found, in other words,
unless we are first able to name the fact that we've been lost,
our identity compromised, and our fortunes squandered on things
that have no ultimate value. We light the candle of "joy" during
Advent because we want to recognize that the coming of Jesus is
the climax of all of history and, in his life, death and
resurrection, Jesus has redeemed that checkered human history
not only for us, but for the whole world. That's why the babe in
the manger is the ultimate discovery. When we were lost, God
himself came to find us!